BDR

Business Growth

Cybersecurity

Help Desk

MDM

RMM

Sales & Marketing

Grow Your Business One Blog Post at a Time

Completing this form indicates your interest in receiving communications designed to help you grow and scale your MSP business. You’ll receive curated educational emails, featuring the latest content and may be contacted by a Continuum representative. Privacy Policy

Dealing with today’s threat landscape can put a burden on most IT and security service providers. There are serious, complex issues you need to solve for your SMB clients—including phishing, brute-force attacks, the dark web, and much more. Without the proper knowledge, technology, and enablement materials, the promise of building an enduring security line of business could be shattered.

To provide MSPs with everything they need to emerge as cyber security leaders, Continuum is bringing its Global Cyber Security Roadshow to IT service providers around the globe! Keep reading to discover what you’ll learn, where we’re heading and why you’ll want to be there.

Last year I decided to buy snow tires for my wife’s car. I suggested she call a shop and make an appointment, but instead, she came back to me with a menu of options—speed ratings, noise ratings, treadwear comparisons and a variety of prices. It was a lot to take in, and I quickly realized that what I thought would be a two-minute process might actually take longer to understand than I’d anticipated. It was only September, so I told her I’d take some time to mull it over before calling back. Then life happened: kids’ hockey games, work, projects around the house, and before I knew it, we were opening Christmas presents and I still hadn’t taken a look at these tires. So at that point, I decided I might as well wait until next year.

Today, Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) has become an essential offering that’s included in almost every MSP’s portfolio. It’s a must-have. Uptime is now critical for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), and users demand always-on access to data and applications. The risks and damages associated with a data loss incident—from human error to technology failure—or a downtime event are too severe to be ignored. Additionally, increasing cybersecurity challenges have exacerbated the need for effective business continuity planning as the ultimate failsafe against ransomware and other malicious attacks.

One of the most important aspects of my job is to determine not only what specific products we are going to recommend/sell to our client base, but also—at a prioritization level—what areas we (and our clients) should be focusing on. I think we can all agree that there is no shortage of solutions out there. Some are incredibly relevant and needed; others, not so much.

As an MSP, it's important to be able to recommend the right tools and capabilities that will help your clients propel their business forward—especially when it comes to cyber security.

Strategy calls have always been a big part of my sales process. They're not only the best chance I have to get to know a prospect a little more before our relationship begins, but also an opportunity for me to provide some genuine value before we even get into the conversation of what things might look like if we work together.

On those strategy calls, I always make it a point to give whatever MSP owner I have the pleasure of speaking with a chance to ask questions. Without fail, there’s one question that comes up over and over again:

When you’re doing work for your clients behind the scenes acting as a remote managed IT services provider, it’s easy for them to overlook the value of your services. That’s why constantly reminding clients of the value you provide and making a strong case for your service delivery is so important. Here are some key points to focus on to get firm grasp on the value of your services and be able to explain them to your clients.

One area that can often get overlooked in MSPs is operational strategy and process building. MSP business environments are chaotic by nature, often with small, nimble teams constantly putting out fires—which makes it easy to put off process-building initiatives. Revenue, profits and customers are always top-of-mind, and anything that remotely looks like it would impede the positive outcomes of these objectives is often deprioritized. Below, we’ll dive into some reasons why building these processes is so important and share insights on how they can catapult your team to greater success.

You just finished ramping up a new client. Everyone is logging on using complex passwords, the workstations and servers are on a regular patching schedule, the servers are getting backed up, the Wi-Fi is configured, and the printer is shared. The whole environment is running like a well-oiled machine—you’ve thought of everything! Or have you?

Well, if your client has a website (and who doesn’t, these days?), then they are probably going to ask you about that too. As their MSP, you are handling all of their computing needs, right? If you think that doesn’t involve making sure their website is secure, think again.

Most managed services providers (MSPs) are no stranger to the struggle of finding qualified candidates for technical jobs. Especially those who are running a lean operation—every hire and every team member is critical. But in order to scale and support the needs of your clients, how can you right-size your team without breaking the bank?

In this partner spotlight, Tandem Systems, an MSP based just outside of Manchester in England, shares how they have more confidence going out to market because they’re backed by Continuum’s Network Operations Center (NOC) team.

When selling managed services, there are often opportunities to cross-sell or upsell existing clients that aren’t fully bought into your portfolio (or who aren’t leveraging your highest or premium service levels). In this episode of The Weekly Byte, we look at four ways MSPs can jump-start these conversations and increase their chances of capturing additional revenue in 2019!